She closed her eyes to keep back the tears, and the car rolled gently
down the grade into the valley. From the tonneau she could catch
snatches of the conversation between her father and the potato baron;
they were discussing the agricultural possibilities of the valley, and
she realized, with a little twinge of outrage, that its wonderful
pastoral beauty had been quite lost on them.
As they swept past the mission, Kay deliberately refrained from
ordering William to toss Don Mike's baggage off in front of the old
pile, for she knew now whither the latter was bound. She would save
him that added burden. Three miles from the mission, the road swung up
a gentle grade between two long rows of ancient and neglected palms.
The dead, withered fronds of a decade still clung to the corrugated
trunks. In the adjoining oaks vast flocks of crows perched and cawed
raucously. This avenue of palms presently debouched onto a little
mesa, oak-studded and covered with lush grass, which gave it a pretty,
parklike effect. In the center of this mesa stood the hacienda of the
Rancho Palomar.
Like all adobe dwellings of its class, it was not now, nor had it ever
been, architecturally beautiful. It was low, with a plain hip-roof
covered with ancient red tiles, many of which were missing. When the
house had first been built, it had been treated to a coat of excellent
plaster over the adobe, and this plaster had never been renewed.
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